


Hand and Name

by Mad_Madame_Mim



Category: jacksepticeye
Genre: Concentration Camps, Dachau, Death, Dr. Schneeplestein - Freeform, Gen, Genocide, Holocaust, I wasn't in a happy place when I wrote this, If the Jack egos were as old as the Mark egos, Nazis, Survivor Guilt, This is what happens when I listen to Leonard Cohen while studying, What would they have lived through, Yad Vashem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 15:02:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14673594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mad_Madame_Mim/pseuds/Mad_Madame_Mim
Summary: What if the Jacksepticeye Egos were as old as Mark's? What sort of things might they have been forced to live through? Schneep muses over memories he wishes could be buried while visiting the recently renovated Holocaust Museum, Yad VaShem, in Israel.





	Hand and Name

The room was so silent that breathing felt like the greatest of vulgarities. The only light came from dangling lamps and the natural glow of the sun streaming through the tall windows on each of the two levels in the room.

                The bottom floor was clear of people, who could only enter the second level -an indoor balcony that ringed the room, made of opaque glass and a gleaming, brass banister. No feet were supposed to trod below, to ever stamp upon those names, again.

                Surely, they had to, Schneep reasoned cynically. How else would those stones, set into the concrete, be kept clean? But he kept his musings to himself as much as possible. Speaking felt like shattering memories in this place.

                Instead he read the names and numbers of the dark brown stones. There was Treblinka, Auschwitz, Bergen Belson, endless numbers and statistics and years. Gravestones, all of them. His eyes continued to scan the room, fighting the shadows of the sunlight slanting through the windows to find- there. The First. Dachau.

                1933-1945. Almost 32,000 dead. A miniscule number compared to the droves of souls that passed through the showers and gas chambers of Auschwitz. But his gaze was arrested, his breathing quickening in this silent chamber as the name seemed to bleed in his brain.

                That blood coagulated into images of the converted munitions factory, of bunk on bunk filled with skeleton thin humans, each barely worthy of being counted amongst the living in their rat, lice and typhus infested repose. His fingers gripped the bannister when he remembered what it was to smell that. Four or five bodies, some no longer breathing, crammed together per bed for warmth and space.

                He didn’t understand how Doppelgangers worked. How some could exist before the human they so resembled. He’d known the stories as well as any Bavarian would. But he didn’t think he understood it any more than the others how they could be so scattered in years and lives and story.

                Did his story have to include this?

                He was getting too loud. He needed to leave.

                There was a veranda, for privacy, for tears, for reminding yourself that the silence, the names, were not your own. _But they could have been_ , his traitorous mind reminded him. _Maybe they should have been_. He swallowed, dragging his eyes open to look over the concrete wall, down to the green courtyard below. Here, just outside of the room where the only sound was the echoes of the dead, the world gleamed new and crisp and glowing, as if fresh from Creation. Birds even sang.

                But it wasn’t birds he heard in his memory. Never birds. There were cries, screams aplenty, and the dry, broken sobs that trailed into silence. The rattle of the machine gunners in the tower.

                Here, it could fit so easily in his mind’s eye. The path below would be the ten foot no man’s land around the bunkers. The security guards the men in their shining boots who liked to steal hats from the Jewish prisoners and toss them into the open area. Some would dive for them because having their head covered was the last rite they could show in their faith. Others did only because lacking one meant being denied food rations. Either way the rattle of the guns ended their struggle.

                Across the way the gate into the Garden of the Righteous Gentiles could almost match the _Jourhaus_ entrance. The gate that proclaimed the freedom work would surely grant.

                And farther away, harder to see over the buildings here, could be the shadow of the _Schubaum_. And there the canteen, where he’d served cigarettes to the men with the shining boots and medals. And there… there the _Infirmary…_

                His hair hadn’t been bushy, then. It had been shaved, and his scalp always cracked and blistered by sun and flea bites. But his hands had been supple, and his eyes always Aryan blue. The yellow badge and vulgarly pink stripe on his arm always gave the guardsmen pause. And once, caught the interest of the Master of Propaganda himself.

                He’d been forced into nice clothes for looks. The first time he’d worn a white shirt in three years. Suspenders to keep his pants from sliding down wasted hips. Shined shoes…

                Because the Nazis kept _useful_ people. Physicians especially. They kept them to help them torment the others. To make plaster casts of the bent and cancerous. To measure noses and ears and eyes and prove their superiority. To do tests on twins and red heads and mentally challenged…

                And he was no different. Except…

                Himmler had paused in front of the table they’d placed him behind. His eyes had been hard and critical. Examining his faults and – he’d turned to his captain, snapping to have the number of this prisoner. A number now hidden under another tattoo. Never a name. They weren’t worthy of names.

                “This one,” The Master of the legends the Nazis told themselves, explained, looking Schneep in the eyes, “Is perfect proof of the insidious nature of these vermin. Look,” a crop tapped onto the pink band on his shoulder, and he couldn’t flinch, couldn’t move, because the captain had his gun out. And then the crop swiveled over to the yellow badge and stripe of red denoting the Gestapo’s claim to his life. “Not even a man. A filthy whore, who bends over to grant penetration by his fellow Kikes. No better than swine, who at least provide food, and help the farmer with his crops.”

                Himmler had nodded and another man stepped forward to grab his chin, drag him forward to let the Propagandist see those eyes. Blue. Such a brilliant blue. He sneered in distaste. “And yet he could almost pass for an Aryan with those eyes. He could sneak and slither into the bedchambers of our women, our youth, and ruin the bloodline of our noble Fatherland.” His lesson over, he gave a curt nod and the guard released Schneep’s jaw. A last glance and he added, “do you have anything to say for yourself, Swine?”

                Schneep wanted to hurt him. Wanted to wrap his hands around his throat and shake him for all the times he’d had to cut through a tumor without anesthesia or even sutures… the children on his operating table… But the gun’s barrel gleamed black and hungry in the belt of the mortal monster.

                Instead, he looked away, bowing his head, and murmured apologies. Begging for forgiveness for daring to look as he did. The souls of the bloody gurneys in the other room, the ice vats, the pipe where people were tied to await “surgery,” they all screamed in his mind at his cowardice. But he remained silent until the SS finished examining the barracks, and he was led away to be stripped of the clean clothes and put back in the filthy stripes and cap. He was thankful for the return, in a fashion. The clean cotton had felt like a betrayal. At least this way he was suffering for his crimes, again. Even if those voices never eased in their hatred of him.

                It was so hard to tear free from the recollection long enough to see the statue of a metal flame down at the head of the path, below. He couldn’t read the slogan from here, but he knew what it said. It explained the meaning of the name of this museum. Yad VaShem. Hand and Name, in Hebrew.

                His voice was dry from lack of use in the silence of the memorial rooms, and echoed with over sixty years of bitterness. “I shall grant them an everlasteeng Hand and Name, that shall not bee cut off or forgotten.” He cringed at his own accent, as if it was an insult in and of itself.

                Eyes shutting against the glare of the setting sun, he hissed in German, “ _How can You pretend to care when You allowed this to happen?_ ” He growled at his own stupidity. If God were real, He was either a malevolent and uncaring Being, delighting in the torture of His children… or, more likely, not there at all. Just an invention of humans craving answers for horrible things. Or excuses for doing them.

                He’d been so overwhelmed by the memories that he hadn’t noticed someone joining him on the private veranda. The movements were jerky, yet subtle, and only once the hand gripped his shoulder, lips pressing against his ear, did he realize what was happening. His eyes flashed open as Anti purred, “It’s a shame that you waste such time seeking help from a God Who does not answer.”

                Nono _no_! He tried to duck out of Anti’s grip, only to be twisted around to face him, pressed roughly into the guard wall by a hand on his throat, the one on his shoulder trailing up to stroke his face. He trembled, feet scrabbling, as the black-eyed creature smiled almost tenderly. “I’m glad I thought to check here when they did the renovations. It’s been a long time, Schneep.” He pressed closer, cutting off any escape.

                Schneep looked in silent panic at the opaque glass doors, the walls blocking off the view from the other veranda. Surely he could scream. Surely there were still cameras. He just had to think straight-

                Shivering, Anti’s eyes fluttered shut, only to open somehow darker and hungrier than before. His voice was nearly brimming with _lust_ as he spoke, grin glitching into three, “You’re in _so much_ pain, Doctor Schneep. I’m so happy I found you, in time.”

                “Of course you are. You damned-“ Schneep’s voice croaked silent as the hand on his throat tightened, nails digging into the skin. Something pulsed under his skin where those nails pierced and his mind was getting so cloudy. Trying to recall why he was upset, Schneep tried pushing at the other Ego’s shoulders, only to see his hands curve around Anti’s shoulders, as if to steady himself.

                He didn’t remember how Anti got him out of there. Only those black eyes reflecting his own blue ones drawing closer, a breath filled with dominion, and Anti’s joyful laughter.


End file.
